[ 475 1 
ftatefrnen, Teems to intimate Tome deeper views than 
the world hath hitherto been appriTed of. 
Augufttis, it is Taid, Tet a very high value on the 
JEneid ; and the defign of the poet in compofing it 
is well known ; but the drift cf the Mad, I think, 
hath not been To well agreed on. 
The Trojan war, as the mol*!; judicious, of the 
Greek hiftorians ( 65 ) informs us, was in itfelf no- 
thing near lo confiderable as the poets had made it. 
But for what end was this ? Was it the fports of the 
imagination only ? Were heaven and earth armed for 
nothing more than the writer’s fancy, and the reader’s 
amulement ? Something more interefting, Ture, was 
at the bottom of all this machinery ; and, if I am not 
much miftaken, the very circumftance9 of the times, 
we are now fpeaking of, naturally gave birth to fuch a 
poem as the Iliad. 
The Perfian empire, by the conqoefts of Cyrus, 
was growing very extenlive and formidable, and mud:, 
confequently, greatly alarm the Ionians, who might 
juftly apprehend their fharing the fame fate with the 
Affyrians, Medes, and Lydians. That he had formed 
a defign of invading them, appeared, as we are in- 
formed by Herodotus (66), from the anfwer he gave 
their ambsrffadors. This they could not but fee, and 
at the fame time perceive themfelves unable to op- 
(65) K-i/ cU'Ju. yz bvoud$-')T</lz r 'tpfo yivoytyct d 
ron iff/* v&rtof'iisegr. bv/ci 7»< <&»u> u, r.du rk vbv orepi avruv Jha rirf 
I7c/»T«f kxtW/jikoT'®'. Tbucyd. I. i. fed. 1 1‘. 
(66) The paflage is too long to be tranfcribed. See Herod. 
p. 58. Edit.Gronov . and Thucyd. lib. i. feft. i6. 
Ooo 2 pole 
